A book

Of
Aphorisms
By
Anthony st. john

Anthony st. john

Casella postale 38
50041 calenzano fi
Italia
Telephone and fax: 055-887.32.28
Cellphone: 0335-604.73.81

Never argue with a woman cleaning the house during her pre-
menstrual tension.

Never marry a woman for her money. Marry her for the money of
her father.

1
Psychoanalysis is an hysterical reaction to history.

Journalism is an exaggeration of an exaggeration.

Tennis is the boxing match of introverts.

The first profession was marriage. Prostitution was created to

preserve the idea of love.

I observe many people who believe in many gods; but, I do not

see one god who believes in one person.

Better Be Christian at the BBC or you will be beebed by The

Beeb.

It is not armed force that will bring us to peace; it is the force of

argument that will.

“My dearest Queen Elizabeth, I wish to tell you something. You

do not see it, I know! But there are enormous cracks in the
foundations of democracy in the Disunited Kingdom that are
causing much unnecessary suffering for many of your subjects.”

The Spanish burn out their frustrations. The Italians cultivate

theirs.

How do you un-exist something?

Credit must be given to Europe for being so obstinate so long.

A museum is a reminder to us of how stupid we are.

The tragicomedy of this century is watching startlingly-slow

industrialised nations enter the Computer Age.

Northamericans express scientifically their slowness to

apprehend. Europeans express theirs artistically.

Stupidity is a safety measure to prevent the immediate escape of

intelligence.

2
I have loved and I do love and I will love individual human beings.
Yet I loathe mankind.

Who needs nuclear bombs when we have nuclear reactors?

The only hope we have is that our sons and daughters will be less
daft than their fathers and mothers.

Yes, silence can be golden. But, it also might serve as the refuge
of censors, bureaucrats and twerps.

The family is an organisation which—like the police—may disturb

you early Sunday morning while you are sound asleep.

The Japanese are making real the dreams of Leonardo da Vinci.

And the Italians are infuriated!

Electronically-controlled church bells ringing on early Sunday

morning will be the eternal vendetta of dead priests.

A toy is a more sophisticated game.

Ernest Hemingway is a bore, but David Leavitt makes him read

excitingly.

The most popular holy picture in Italy is green and it has a

portrait of George Washington upon it.

If you want to live serenely with a woman, you must learn to stop
urinating on the toilet seat.

The mass media cannot be held responsible for the way it tells us
what news it tells us, but it is responsible for leaving out what
news it has elected to omit.

“We are doing something wrong, and we know it!”

Is it not strange that we put men who call themselves Napoleon

in mental hospitals, but those who claim to be representatives of
unseen gods we put in pulpits?

The Vietnam veteran is not crazy because he went to Vietnam.

He is crazy because he continues to live in the United States.

3
Mass media specialists might quicken up the speed of meanings
of words and so dilute the previously recognised significance of
them, and lead the way to creating a new vocabulary. Overall,
unfortunately, they distort more than they create.

Atom bombs are like gods: people who believe in them say they
are everywhere; but, no one ever sees them.

“The Earth is said to be about 5,000,000,000 years old. We have

not found in this time a universal name for a god [spelled
backwards: dog!] or even for the measurement of our shoes.
The only word I know which has a sense of that pertaining to or
affecting the entire world, or all within the world, is the child’s
utterance for defecation: pooh-pooh.”

“If we want to know our true selves, we must despair of us every

day.”

We will never be perfect, but we must always seek perfection—

even for the hell of it!

The British will laugh at Northamericans for their electronic

evangelism. But do not laugh at the British for their BBC
evangelism.

The idea of god and churches have made human wisdom seem
foolish. When will human wisdom make god and churches seem
foolish?

Maybe the only way the Earth might save itself is if it is attacked
from Outer Space, and Earthlings are forced to unite together
against a common enemy—not themselves.

Whenever I meet a very rich person, I ask immediately: “What is

the capitalistic system like?” And the immediate response:
“Don’t you know?” And I reply: “No, I don’t have enough money
to enjoy it.” Then: “Why don’t you work like me and earn some
so you can enjoy it.”

Becoming old means learning what dose of sentimentality you

can swallow.

4
I have never met a woman who could clean the bathroom as well
as I can. They are always in a hurry to do so many things: raise
children, work, cook, clean…

DON’T THINK! You might become intelligent.

Can you cut off the taste of the food in your mouth using the
power of your brain?

I have been on this side (capitalism) of the fence for so long that
to switch to the other (communism) would be like swapping
Christian for Jewish.

What would it be like for a Christian to see through the eyes of a

Jew?

Being true to yourself is like shooting painful bulls-eyes.

The biggest business in Italy is not Ferraris or shoes or sweaters.

It is Christianity.

A nation is developing when the perforation machines—used to

divide individual pieces of toilet paper—are maintained.

I have never had enough money to say that I might have enjoyed
the capitalistic system. Have you?

I live nine kilometres from Firenze. It takes twenty minutes to get

there by horse and forty-five minutes to get there by bus.

I buy three or four eaux de cologne and mix them together when
I get home.

Italians suffer an oral dyslexia.

Certain speakers of Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Provençal,

French, Italian, Rhaeto-Romance, and Rumanian have done two
very important things for me in my life: they have kept me in a
constant, medium to low-high state of justifiable irritation; and,
they have taught me to acquire some degree of patience.

Italians are like snow—falling to the ground—that does not stick.

5
Italians are the caretakers of the remains of one of the biggest
lies in the history of the world.

I am a thinker who dreams and a dreamer who thinks.

Everybody is my friend!

Italians are at their best when they pretend to be happy.

There was a time when you took your date out and asked what
book your date was reading. Today, you ask your date if he/she
has ever read a book!

Before coming to Italy, I had always wondered why there are so

many saints in Italy. Now I know why. You have to be a saint to
live in Italy!

In love, in war four things count: you must be awake; you must
be afraid; you must have respect; and, you must be assured.

Beethoven has “pushed” me more than anyone.

Capitalism is not working, but people are swearing to their gods

that it is.

My economy is simple: All those who have more money than me,
are thieves. And, to the rest, I am a thief.

People say they took an aspirin for their headaches. Or they had
an operation to remove their cancers. Or they had a tooth
extracted to cure their toothache. But never have I heard people
say they have been cured of their neuroses or psychoses. Have
you?

Is it not amazing that the same nation that drops napalm on

children can drop men on the moon?

I snap out at the stupidity of man not because I am anymore

intelligent, but because wherever I go for enlightenment, I am
laughed at.

The mass media reports the news efficiently, elegantly, and

fantastically. What it does not report, disturbs me.

6
He/she does not want to be in love. He/she wants to be in sex.

I do not want to be published. I want to be immortalised.

There are really only two political parties in the world: that of
theism (black) and that of atheism (red).

Journalists and politicians sleep together in the same bed. But

the journalists do not get up on the same side on which they
entered the bed—after.

Rationalism would be a fantastic philosophy if there were enough

rationalists around.

“The Northamericans have out-Europed Europe. Old Mother

Europe is choking with a feeling of discontent and resentment.
She is contemplating the desirable possessions of Northamerica
with a strong desire to have them for herself.”

Europe is like a one-hundred-year-old on a life support system.

Everyone is torn between pulling the plug and facing the
inheritance tax music.

I have lived in “democratic” Italy for many years, but I have not
yet had the liberty to attend a football match.

The United States and its allies continue to hang chandeliers of

exotic weapons all over the world.

Phobias are un-definable reactions to universal insanities.

Mother Europe is going through her menopause.

We invite those who say they represent a god we have never

seen, and beg them to fan crosses over the food we will eat.

There is a revolutionary wing in the Roman Catholic Church.

After centuries, it is now permitting women to sing Gregorian
Chant!

English is synthetic and radical.

7
 I have met many stupid people in my life. Italians are the first to
tell me they are proud to be stupid as long as it is Italian stupid.

We look to the past with a sense of superiority, and in museums

and churches we come upon a spatial existence that bolsters our
egos even more.

Communism did not work. And capitalism does not, either. Why?
What are we doing wrong?

Northamericans liberated Italy from the Germans, but they did

not liberate Italy from the Italians.

Italy is the richest, poorest country in the world.

Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain are underdeveloped First World

Countries.

Are the Germans more dense for building concentration camps,

or for continuing to keep them in their memories.

There is an imperative in the world for all people to join in a spirit

of community. But, there is not enough capital to permit them to
do so.

The ultimate compliment is this: I enjoyed your work, and I

learned something from it.

Science is twisting mankind’s arm to believe in itself, and

religionists are fuming.

Without doubt there is no intelligence.

Writers are individuals who acquire patience by force.

One must measure carefully one’s dosage of irrationality.

Rationality is like wine. It can help you to digest; or, it can kill
you.

Sure I won. But they gave the prize to another.

8
Italians are playing Russian roulette with a pistol that has one
bullet in a chamber with one-thousand bores. They are
convinced they will not be shot, and they have forgot the name
of the game they are playing.

They are making radios so small you have to blow on them to

change the stations.

Divorce is better than murder.

If you live in Italy for a hundred years and you are not Italian, you
will never be made to feel Italian.

The easiest place to steal in this world is in a government. And

you do not have to carry a gun.

Where are the politicians who can walk amongst their people
without bodyguards?

It is more fun to make history than it is to write about it.

Jesus changed water into wine, and Science is changing Jesus

into thin air.

We would not be here if we could not be.

Boy Scouts are shoehorned into the army.

There are women who flash their children just as an undercover

detective flashes his badge.

Europeans are secure of their existences; Northamericans are

insecure of theirs.

An artist does not need a professor. He/she teaches something

even when wrong.

You do not hear people saying anymore that the world is going to
the dogs. Just about everyone knows now this mess is not even
fit for them.

For the most part, people listen to the music of a song; they do
not listen so much to its words. Even French people. If they paid

9
close attention to the words of La Marseillaise, it might become
the most detested song in France.

I must be getting old. I am starting to listen to what others have

to say!

Northamericans have been obtuse for more than two-hundred

years. Europeans have been obtuse for more than two-thousand
years.

Europe must unite to save itself. But before it does, it must take
vitamins.

I do not accept awards—only money.

Walk backwards when you are leaving so I may think you are
coming home.

I am an Inductionist. I analyze from Particulars to the General. I

am a P(I)G!

Can it be that it is more of a crime to kill an animal which does

not think than to kill one which says it can?

I agree with Harry Truman: History is bunk! After all, it should

not be the goal of mankind to insist upon reviewing its stupidity.
Rather, we should seek to do something about the present state
of affairs—and now!

The Bible and the works of Shakespeare have something in

common: theists and Englishmen buy them, but they do not read
them even though there are miracles to be found in both of
them!

Have you ever seen a disabled horse or snake?

Italians are always dressed to go to church—but they never go.

I am ecstatically delighted to know I am not happy.

I’m happy I’m not happy.

10
 The world is distressed and disabled, and two medicines are
being prescribed: the witchcraft of capitalism and the witchcraft
of communism.

Italian politics is like Italian religion: everyone believes in it—but

no one sees it.

He thinks with his penis and fornicates with his brain.

Boxing is proof not so much that the human race is obtuse as

much as it is proof that the human race wants to be obtuse.

Architecture is frozen music.

The sad truth of the matter is that Europeans are condemned to

become more like Northamericans; and, Northamericans are
condemned to become more like Europeans.

Italians are like stamps that do not have glue on their backs.
They do not stick.

The nation that gave us hot dogs with sauerkraut and

Beethoven cannot be all that bad.

“Unlike the Germans and the Japanese, the Italians have still not
“recovered” to some extent from their humiliations born during
World War II. And just when Italians need to be healthy and
strong to confront those European realities that will come after
the turn of the twentieth century, they are weak and confused.”

A unified Western Europe is just too sophisticated for a people

who have never been able to afford safety to their citizens seated
in football stadiums.

With all the gods and religions around us, would it not be more
honest to say that they have been invented by man?

Democracy is more real when the promises of politicians are

fulfilled before election day.

Which god do you believe in? There are so many of them!

The way to a woman’s heart is through her fallopian tubes.

11
 Life is so unjust we are forced to do one of three things:
Conform, and pretend we are not stealing; steal, and pretend we
are not conforming; or, write poetry and conform and steal at the
same time!

An Italian businessman dreams and then looks for money. A

Northamerican businessman gets the money and then dreams.

Each hand washes the other and together they shake.

Knowledge derived from study and experience can be invested

with that which serves to distinguish one thing from others and
gives a result or effect that is intended.

I have loved women without touching them; and, I have touched

women without loving them. Better to love and touch in unison!

He said he never had enough money to buy the wife he really

wanted.

Children are incomplete adults. And we all know what happens

to adults.

I have six billion friends, but I would not waste one minute with
99% of them.

My nation is the world and my nationality is worldly.

The coming battles to unite Europe will do more to strengthen

socialism than did the two world wars.

Little facts can be the origins of big lies especially in the hands
of journalists and politicians.

Tranquility or Artillery?

There are millions of women in the world who want a baby more
than they want a husband. And they will fake taking their birth
control pills to get their baby.

Now I know why Victorian men went away to smoke cigars and
drink brandy after dinner. They were being kind.

12
 When the family approaches you to ask when you are going “to
have a baby,” ask them when they are going to pay for it!

He’s as Northamerican as cocaine!

Chevrolet…Apple pie…Coca-Cola…Mom…Valium…Librium…
Marijuana…Cocaina…JUST SAY “No”!!!

He’s not obtuse. He’s frequently ignorant!

Do as I say. Don’t do as I do.

Larry is a lawyer and a liar. Larry is a liar and a lawyer. Larry is

a lying lawyer!

No, history does not repeat itself! But human beings can be
depended upon to be constantly obtuse.

Behind every great woman there is a baffled man.

Dumas said: “Next to God no one has created more than

Shakespeare.” What about Beethoven?

The music of Beethoven has touched me more than the words

of any literary genius.

Nations are diseases we must find vaccines for.

I am jumping for joy that Europe has selected Beethoven’s Ninth

Symphony for its anthem and not some idiotic Gregorian Chant.

The image of a very large wedge.

And to think the United States is self-conscious about Europe!

Managing change means changing management.

The European Union, instead of leading to a utopia of neo-

capitalism, will be the stimulus for a revival of neo-Marxism.

I am a rationalistic empiricist who acts on probabilities.

13
 My writings need to be published so that they may find their just
reality.

Why should we not save animals? We cannot save ourselves.

One of my passions is to let people know how obtuse they are

without telling them.

Breast feeding is vital for the mother, for the child, and for
humanity. But, above all, it is vivifying for the breast! It
stimulates the prosperous growth of the nipples!

The Earth is billions of years old. What is “god” waiting for?

Simpatico is a word which means that if I stab you in the back

you had better not cry, or else I will tell everyone you are not
nice.

Our Father who art in heaven—STAY THERE!

There is not life after death. That is why we have inheritance

taxes.

All the world is happy Europe is acting out its frustrations on the
football field and not on the battlefield.

The problem with some countries in Europe is not that they

should be worried about entering the twenty-first century; but,
that they should be worried about entering the 1960s.

Maturity is the ability to resist.

They wear their children just as they wear their furs and gold
watches.

She is the mother of John, Jr. but the husband of John, Sr..

For the world to have peace, we must confirm one and other.
But before we confirm others, we must confirm ourselves. We
must connect words and ideas with actions.

14
 Being smart is knowing how ignorant you are. If you want to
appear intelligent, tell everyone you think of yourself as being
stupid!

Children are acting like adults. Adults are acting like children.

Italians are geniuses of design and fashion, but they are

mentally retarded when it comes to selling and marketing.

I’m a capcom! A capitalistic communist.

“It does not make sense—and it should not.”

Although I am not an idiot, it looks as if I am qualified to do

idiotic work only.

There is a north-south debate in Western Europe.

Are you politically inclined to the black or to the red? Hurry up

and decide!

My blood is red and my heart beats on the left.

“I’m not proud to be a human being, so how can I be proud to

be a Northamerican or a Venezuelan or an Italian?”

Love goes out the door when money comes in through the
window.

He spies for the Central Stupidity Agency.

He is drunk, rich, over eighty-five, and lives in Switzerland—the

perfect place for him.

Half the mothers of this world should be arrested for child abuse
and not sent chocolates and flowers on Mother’s Day.

Northern Europe and Southern Europe are honing their swords.

There are two things to learn from university life: what

excellence is and intelligence is not.

15
 My errors serve me. I do not erase them; I cross them out. I
want to see them always.

Medicine is the art of poisoning.

Do not be confused. He is not so much intelligent as he is.

New York is too fast for my body and too slow for my mind.

The United States was discovered by Italian journalists five-

hundred years after Columbus arrived there.

I am a born leader but no one wants to follow me.

Italy is one big over-worked liver.

I am my best philosopher.

I have relieved myself of the idea of a god; but, I cannot

extricate myself from the idea of man.

Does not a shopping mall or a stadium offer more spatial

experience than a church or a synagogue?

The purpose of an artist is to tell people just how obtuse they

are without offending them.

I came to Europe to meet and know intelligent people. Instead, I

found out why Northamericans are so ignorant.

They are buying books the way they buy sweaters and socks.
The colors of the dust covers must blend with the living room
furniture and must absorb the colored rays of the television set.

I have so little money. The capitalistic system is treating me

very badly.

They cannot even manage their own families! How can they
manage their businesses? Their governments?

God is not dead enough.

16
 Northamericans and Southamericans believe well in what
Europe tells them.

Psychoanalysis is not much better than voodooism.

When will Northamericans wake up to find that they have sown

more the seeds of hate and misunderstanding than they have
planted seeds of love and understanding?

It is not that I am more intelligent than you are. No! I know

how stupid I am and I know how to keep quiet about it.

If you want to take the war temperatures of the European war

bodies, go to their football stadiums.

Do you think that an all-powerful, perfect, super-intelligent, pre-

eminently righteous god could create two imbeciles such as you
—and me?

Violence is not the reason to step out of society to analyse one’s

own life situation and then transform it so as to achieve liberation
from oppression within.

Is not good fortune traditionally a most unpardonable flaw

among those who have not thrived?

Money is the best birth control in the industrialised world.

Something is holding up Europe and it is not the Europeans!

People are not as obtuse as they appear to be. They are waiting
for something to catalyse them into action.

A genius is someone who really understands how stupid he/she

is and does not pretend to be self-conscious about it.

Of course art should teach and delight. But before it does so it

must sell.

Old literary agents never die, they just stop reading manuscripts.

You do not have to be an economist or political scientist to know

that the best birth control device is a high cost of living.

17
 “Need we remind you again that it was the Northamericans who
first dropped the atom bomb on innocent people?”

When you believe in something fervently, you will eventually

become imprisoned by it.

The more people tell you how happy they are, the more they are
sad.

Societies that are disciplined to get what they want become

dangerous when they do not get what they want.

Of course it is not his fault that he is a duke or a prince or a

king; but, it is his fault to continue calling himself one.

There are people in this world who are proud to be stupid. Can
you guess who they are?

In Italy the law is equal for everyone except those who squirm
under the courtroom’s crucifix.

An artist is one who sells big with no effort.

An intricately-designed space station is enormously more

beautiful than any painting hung over the fireplace. And what is
even more attractive is that it has a purpose.

Only an idiot would pay millions for a painting he will hang in his
living room.

“The most widely-used contraceptive device in the world is not

the prophylactic or pill. It is inflation.”

People do not have babies not because they do not want them;
but, because they cannot afford them.

My mind is sharp, crisp. But I drift in a sea of chaos.

I do not feel lonely. I feel alienated.

The streets of Europe are made for horses—not VOLVOS.

18
 “The crisis of our time is the inability of governments to
reconcile the inalienable rights of all individuals to personal
development with the necessity to diminish the misery of the
masses.”

Television commercials constitute a looter’s shopping list.

Has anyone correlated the growth of finger nails with life

expectancy?

“Will someone please tell me why the Queen of England,

Elizabeth—perhaps the richest woman in the world—has always
an I’ve-just-eaten-a-lemon look on her face?”

Getting old means saying out loud what you thought—when

young—should be kept quiet.

MEMO TO JOB HUNTERS: Until they start paying you, you have
every right to be treated as a human being.

Science fiction is the hope of finding an enemy that is not

human. I do not like it at all.

If hunters can hunt animals, why cannot I hunt my mother-in-

law?

Art delights and enlightens.

I am a word ecologist: Let us change “elevator” to “lift”; let us

change “trousers” to
“pants”; let us change “labour” to “labor”; and, let us
change “Mr.” to “Mr”…et cetera.

Please, do not clone my mother-in-law!

In New York you ask first what kind of restaurant do you want
to eat in.

Few men, when they love and/or sex, will slip a rubber sheath
over their penises to reduce the geometrically increasing birth
rate in the world. But most will do so to buy a sports car.

19
 Europe in under the political and economical thumb of the
United States of America and does not know what to do about it.

Europe is fascism with a capital “F.”

You can lump diplomats, journalists and lawyers in one group

and economists, weather forecasters and astrologists in another.

What if it is not what we think it to be?

What if it is the opposite of what we think it is to be?

Did you kiss your child today. No. I did better than that. I never
had one.

I loved two Jewish girls in my life. The first told me she could
not love me because I was a goy. The second told me she could
not love me because I did not have enough money.

31 December 1999!!! Finally, this century of shit is over!

Life is a video cassette that can be rewound fast or very fast.

One regime, headed by a retired general, gave us Elvis Presley.

Another regime, headed by the Queen of England, gave us The
Beatles.

I am fan of the team which pays my entrance ticket.

Padre Pio is not a saint. He is a multinat business.

Queen Elizabeth, where do you have your hair done? At the

Royal Mint?

Queen Elizabeth, who handles your public relations? The

Gestapo?

When they are not dropping bombs on anyone, deep down

inside the Northamerican people are fine people.

The Italians are the best-dressed bankrupts in the world.

20
 The question is not whether or not women should be allowed to
be soldiers. The question is whether or not men should be
allowed to be soldiers.

Pettiness is the foundation stone upon which is constructed

fortresses of arrogance.

Of course you should marry. Who is going to cut your toe nails
when you are old and gray?

Who cuts Queen Elizabeth’s toe nails? Prince Philip?

Modern Italian history reads like exercises in How Not to Do It.

Paul McCartney is the Frank Sinatra of the United Kingdom.

He is so nice, nobody likes him.

All is economics and not politics. Politicians enter government

because there is the easiest place to steal. You do not even have
to carry a gun.

He is a philanthropist. He robs from the poor to give to the

poor.

A purely negative effort is doomed to failure.

Anatomy is not destiny. But how we feel about our anatomy can
make our destiny.

A good song has to do two things for me: bring chills up and
down my spine and bring tears to my eyes.

Spies have a license to kill and lawyers have a license to lie.

Royalty is proof that humanity uses only ten percent of its brain
cells.

Jesus Christ was “packaged” much better than Karl Marx.

A lawyer is someone who has discovered that logic does not

exist.

Science and technology are out-miracling Jesus Christ.

21
 Thoughts are the fingerprints of our minds.

The relationship between man and woman is based on the

desperate hope that one might be better than the other.

A woman knows how to pullulate patience.

Marriage is the only battle in which you sleep with the enemy.

Dizzy as a fly in a pastry shop.

If money does not make you happy you can always give it away.

A unified monetary system is not the only thing Europe lacks. It

needs shock therapy, too.

The Roman Catholic Church says that its priests cannot touch
other men or women. So then, they are left to touch themselves.

Hitler and Stalin were what their people wanted them to be.

Our future is already our past.

The football stadium is the anus in which the Central Stupidity

Agency sticks its thermometer to take the temperature of the
violence of Italian society.

Is living with a woman without marrying her worse than living

with her married? Of course, if you are not married to her, you
cannot divorce her. Then you have to kill her!

Will someone please invent a system where numbers do not

have to be stapled to the wool of my sweaters when I take them
to be cleaned?

No one likes Northamericans, but everyone likes $$$.

God or money? Money.

“I want to dedicate this book to Judith Madden, Majorie Lynam,

Lucia Lobo, Rosa Puente, Maria del Pilar, and Maria Luisa Sergio.
Without your help I would have had a more enjoyable and more
prosperous life.”

22
 The stadio is the asshole in which the Central Intelligence
Agency inserts the thermometer to check the temperature of the
violence of Italian youth.

When you are in love with two women, give each of them a
pistol and ask them to have a duel.

It is so much more fun making history than it is writing or

reading about it.

Gianni Agnelli did more than anyone else to bring Italy into
the European fold. He invented the FIAT. It is such a bad car,
Italians were forced to buy foreign cars and communicate with
countries beyond their borders.

Democracy means that a nation’s hospitals, schools, post

offices, transportation systems and theatres and orchestras are
more elegant than its jewelry shops, clothes boutiques, banks
and ice cream parlours.

Italy is committing suicide and the pistol of choice is

xenophobia.

You are not supposed to enjoy life. You are supposed to survive
and try to better things for all individuals.

Besides having five or six extra cheap umbrellas in their homes

and tend to lend you one when it has begun suddenly to rain, rich
people often smell nice, too.

The best publicity is bad publicity. Q.E.D.: Journalists are

imbeciles.

I am a spy. A secret agent. I am 0069. I have a license to love.

Should we ground female pilots when they are in the throes of

their pre-menstrual tension?

Economy is horoscoping with numbers.

I like rich people because they often smell fresh.

23
 Italians are trying awfully hard to be something they are
not.

She is as faithful as a woman on her honeymoon.

Women are the juxtaposition between rationalisation and

murder.

The Italians do not have so much a problem with English as

they have with Italian.

Italian is a dead language. Deader than Latin.

The rich get richer and the Enron’s get bigger. Three cheers for
creative destruction.

After two thousand years the Italians are finally learning that a
virgin could not give birth to a baby. And that a thirty-three-year
old man could not change water into wine, but a middle-aged
man from Seattle just might be able to do it.

The medium is not the message. The message is that the

medium is not divulging all the message.

The mother of Leonardo da Vinci put bread crusts dunked in

wine into the mouth of her child to help with his teething. Today
Florentine mothers pop pills into the mouths of their babies.

Italians do not have money to spend on new schools, new

transport systems, new hospitals, new irrigation systems…. But
they do have money to buy perfumed toilet paper.

Marylin Monroe does not exist. Our collective idea of her does.
This idea is so perverse, we do not have the courage to admit
what it is. Negating this idea, we continue to enlarge the myth
about her. The snowball going down the mountain gets bigger
and bigger. Marylin Monroe, and others like her, is the realization
of the myth to not know the Truth. We expand this myth with the
hope of concealing what The Truth is. Do we really do want to
know The Truth? It depends.

I do what I do because I could not be a great rock n’ roll singer.

24
 Is it not wonderful that we can commemorate the death of Elvis
Presley every 15 August without thinking about the Assumption
of the Virgin Mary into heaven!

Newspapers are filled every 15 August with stories about Elvis

Presley and not the Virgin’s Assumption.

Elvis Presley was kind enough to die on the fifteenth of August,

the day the Virgin Mary floated into heaven.

Silvio Berlusconi robs from the poor to give to the rich.

We are progressing!

Let’s compose an Ode to Tuna Fish!

I have opened the brains of the Italians which I found in their

tongues.

Italians have micro minds—not macro minds.

Italians have taught me the meaning of democracy by taking it

away from me.

The Italians will learn enough English to do business with

Northamericans, but not enough English to do politics with the
Northamericans.

Italy is the only country in the world where a father can take his
son to Mass and Holy communion in the morning, take him to a
whore house in the afternoon, and then make him read Marx and
Engels in the evening.

The United States of America is a great nation—if it is not

bombing you!

Less journalists; more Truth.

Let us thrive on our hypotheses.

More sport; less religion.

It is so much more fun making history than it is writing about it.

25
 Sometimes I wonder if the United States will have enough
money to buy enough printing presses to stamp enough money
for its needs.

I oblige think tanks to leak.

When someone calls me on the telephone to ask me to

participate in a survey, I tell them I only answer surveys in
person. And if someone stops me on the street and asks me to
participate in a survey, I tell him or her that I only answer surveys
on the telephone.

If you were an animal being transported to the slaughter house

by train, truck or plane, would you be grateful to those human
beings who were fighting to have legislation passed on your
behalf limiting the number of hours you could travel?

Need is the seed of contrivance.

I have consigned my love to the non-intimidating perimeters of

my poetry.

Think always the worst. If it arrives you are ready. If it doesn’t

you have a reason to party.

Italian women swear by the tenderness of Mozart’s music.

I despise the DisUnited States because it did not give me a

chance to be a hero during the Vietnam “War.”

The people of the United States are a wonderful lot—if they are
not trying to bomb you.

Italian politicians are not politicians. They are a species of

economists who do not know how to count.

Politicians seek a consensus. Italian politicians seek a pay

raise.

When they ask me in the street to participate in a survey, I

tell them I take surveys only by telephone; and, when they call

26
me asking me to participate in a survey I tell them I take surveys
only in person.

I survived in Venezuela because I was a war veteran and a

native of New York. I have survived in Italy because I was a
volunteer in two mental hospitals.

Relatives are those individuals who remind you what diseases

you will inherit.

Northamericans are the best thieves that there are and they
steal for the United States. Italians are pretty good thieves and
they steal for Swiss banks.

One of the benefits of the decline of Roman Catholicism is that

cleaning personnel can store their cleaning materials in unused
confessional boxes.

Will somebody please rip out the typewriter ribbon of Oriana

Fallaci’s 1953 manual typewriter?

Passionless women mix water with their wine.

The journalist is a frustrated writer and the lawyer is a

frustrated philosopher.

When I served in the United States Army Field Artillery they

called me “a loose cannon.” When I served in United States
Army Missile Training Battalion they called me “a wayward
missile.”

In the Islam world, all women want to put a dog leash around
the necks of their husbands. But in the Christian world, all men
want to put a dog leash around the necks of their wives.

Why not a marriage license renewable every five years or so?

Relax! The world as we know it has already ended.

The world economic system that is now in place gives money to

people to do something they don’t want to do so that they may
have money to do something they want to do.

27
 The situation is worse than Thatcher, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II,
Blair, Chirac and Berlusconi ever could imagine. Why do you
think we are stuck with these goofballs?

The Italian national motto is this: How can we suffer more?

He doesn’t accept praise or prizes. Just cash.

Don’t be foolish! Be a pessimist.

I don’t live in the United States because it is not good enough

for me.

What is the difference between hard and strong? A hard

person is always strong. A strong person knows when to be hard
and then soft.

The United States of America was the first nation to use

coloured toilet paper.

The Americans have been obtuse for two-hundred years; the

Europeans have been obtuse for two-thousand years.

Berlusconi, Hammamet! Berlusconi, Hammamet!! Berlusconi,

Hammamet!!!

The Americans are a wonderful people—if they aren’t bombing

you.

Don’t step on the tail of one billion Islamics! I implore you.

(Maurizio Costanzo Show, 19 February 1991.)

Professor Antinori, I beg you, I implore you, please do not clone

my mother-in-law.

You don’t study English anymore. You play with it.

It is not that the Florentines are living in the Past. If that was
only so. No! It is worse. They are prisoners of a Past that does
not pertain to them any longer. What poor things they are.

28
 “Italian politicians” are not politicians. (Politicians seek a
consensus.) Rather, they are a species of economists who do not
know how to count.

One cold Friday in December 2001, I stopped a Parmalat

salesman who had been examining the shelves of a Panorama
supermarket near my home. I pointed my finger directly in his
face and said: “There is a Fiat Panda in your future.” He
laughed. We met another couple of times later on, and each time
he said: “Professor, there’s a Fiat Panda in my future! There’s a
Fiat Panda in my future!! There’s a Fiat Panda in my future!!!”
He was kidding with me. On 2 January 2004 I will go to the office
of the director of my bank (Banca Toscana) in Calenzano, and I
will say to him: “There’s a Fiat Panda in your future!” And I
won’t be ribbing him.

Why are the Florentines dying of boredom? Or, are they dying
of boredom?

Maria de Filippi is the husband of Maurizio Costanzo.

Certainly! They have to crucify Wanna Marchi! She is so much

like Silvio Berlusconi. The two of them are extraordinary
salespeople. Both are capable of selling the Colosseo. One of
them tricked the Italians with a little box filled with seaweed.
(Venial Sin). The other hoodwinked the Italians with a trunk of
demagoguery. (Mortal Sin). Let us defend the Marchi family from
a Bad that no individual—including Silvio Berlusconi—merits: a
political lynching. Yet, let us not absolve Wanna and Stefania
their foolhardiness.

Cin cin, Florentines!!! You have made a gas chamber out of

the cradle of humanism.

Gianfranco Fini is incredible! He declared that Benito Mussolini

was the greatest statesman of the twentieth century. Today, 21
December 2004, he has rendered homage at the tomb of Yassir
Arafat. Who’s pulling the strings of this marionette? Henry
Kissinger?

With so many bookshops in Firenze, an extraterrestrial might

be able to deduce—at first sight—that the Florentines are
intelligent.

29
 Bye-bye Camp Darby! See you in Albania.

Umberto Bossi: The Green Pitbull.

Saints and Saintesses of Italy! Unite! Twenty-five more years

of Berlusconi!!! Forza—Italia!

I am a man decidedly against the relaxation of the breast, and

each day—with passion, intelligence and courage—I fight to
maintain all breasts as high as they might be, for all women, in
this Universe.

When they call me at my home and ask me to participate in a

survey, I say that I take surveys only in person; and, when they
stop me in the middle of the street and ask me to chip in and fill
out a survey, I say that I only take surveys on the telephone.

Here work turbocapitalists.

Don’t cry anymore, italiano! Your Parmalat money is in the

Vaticano!

The stadium is the asshole into which the Central Stupidity

Agency puts the thermometer that controls the temperature of
the violence of the Italian society.

The Americans are exceptional thieves (The Best!). But, they

rob for the United States of America. Instead, the Italians, pretty
good crooks, steal for Swiss banks.

Is your English or American accent holding you back in your

career? Now you can learn English with a pure international
enunciation and enjoy the rounds of applause of the
international community.

The Americans liberated Italy from the Germans, but they

didn’t liberate Italy from the Italians. N’est pas?

Esso. Sesso. Spesso. Exxon. Sexxon.

How do you know when Vittorio Cecchi Gori is lying? His lips
move.

30
 My dear Italian manager, the epoch of the smooth look is over.
Let’s get to work! Now!

What is the difference between a dead dog lying in the street

and Vittorio Cecchi Gori lying dead in the street? There are skid
marks before the dog.

Italy is Argentining.

Is Italy Venezueling?

The Florentines don’t know how to manage a bus line. Quod

erat demonstrandum, how can we expect them to be capable of
administrating a network of museums?

Let us listen to a Florentine football/soccer player before the

microphone, immediately after the usual defeat: “We played
perfectly…B-U-T…”

One of the most frequently used expletives used in Firenze is

the following: Nulla! (Nothing!)

The Italians continue to believe in God and God continues not

to believe in them! An eternal impasse.

After centuries and centuries of “culture,” the Florentines still

have not learned to regenerate their own race!

The Italians continue to understand Northamericans through

the 1950s’ films honchoed on them by the United States’
Department of State and Mario & Vittorio Cecchi Gori.

The Northamericans are progressivists bending towards the

Future. The Italians are entrepreneurs leaning backwards in the
direction of the Past. And it is just right here we can get to the
focal point of the sado-masochistic relationship between the
Northamericans and the Italians. Opposites attract. No?

The Florentines are so stingy that they buy RESET chewing

gum (powermint grains) and, before going to bed, attach it to
their bedposts so that they can use it over again the next day.

31
The number one selling car colour in Italy is grey—the same
colour of Italy’s medieval buildings and the skies over any
polluted Italian city.

Italian food, without a doubt, is one of the finest in the world.

It is also true that Verecolene is the number one selling over-the-
counter drug in Italy? Buon appetito?

Here is an interesting historical anecdote that pleases me:

During the medieval ages Italian mothers dipped the crusts of
their freshly baked bread in wine glasses and gave them to their
children who were teething. Today, Italian mothers feed their
babies antibiotics, cigarette fumes, and little balls of grease
sprayed with artificial cheese flavouring. Not only do the Italians
not know how to survive, they are incapable of preserving what
they have! They are in via di estinzione.

Does there exist a muzzle large enough to cover the mouth of

Iva Zanicchi?

Will someone please put a hood over the head of Maurizio

Costanzo and leave it there? Grazie!

Is Jessica Rizzo menopausing? Poor thing.

Luca di Montezemolo for President of the Presidents! King of

the Presidents?

Italy is forever placed at the top of the worst lists and at the
bottom of those best. Why? Why do Italians insist on being the
best when no one else thinks of them as such?

Why do subscribers who possess a TIM 335 telephone prefix

seem to be always more intelligent and nice?

Bye-bye Eli Lilly of Sesto Fiorentino! See you in Switzerland.

Why don’t we have to pay for the La Nazione? Is it that bad?

The Italians listen to English songs they don’t understand; and,

they sing Italian songs that no one else understands.

Now even Fausto Bertinotti knows that fascists are imbeciles.

32
 Truly, the only consensus Italian politicians reach is that one
which raises their salaries.

Hit the Vatican where it hurts! In its “rich” boxes!

In Italy, you must be rich, or faking it, in order to have a baby.

I am the inconvenient tenant in the grand condominium.

The Italians are the best-dressed bankrupts in the world.

Italy is in a post-tsunami state of mind.

Paul Ginsborg is silly! He’s writing a history of Italy instead of

a tragedy.

The Italian national motto: “How can we suffer?”

Children of middle class Chinese families collect books. Italian

children collect teddy bears.

Cardinal Michele Giordano, Archbishop of Napoli, is my choice

for Pope. (1 January 2004.)

Italians are great for keeping people in poverty: their own!

Even the Italians are beginning to speak badly about the

Italians!

It’s not impossible to teach Italians foreign languages. It’s

useless.

Note well, Italians! More than one Roman preferred death to

exile.

Bush II is eliminating Italy’s air pollution problem and the

Italians aren’t even grateful to him.

I have a great idea! Let’s have a We’re in via di estinzione

party. Now!

33
 My dear fidels and infidels: Please light a candle for the Italian
economy.

There are more saints and saintesses in Italy than there are
VERECOLONE tablets.

Will someone please tell me once and for all: Are the Italians
poor or stingy?

Firenze is a rest home for ostriches.

I don’t know where Italian women go for their male hormones,

but I am certain they have overdosed on them.

I, Anthony St. John, officially declare: Italy is a tragedy. Not

a comedy.

Gianfranco Cassini and Gianni Morandi: My vote for political

altar boys of the year.

In Italy, Art serves to channel to some “nowhere” whatever

irksomeness is on the horizon.

Italians cannot organize a bus route, but they want you to

know that they can sort out a world order.

The biggest problem Italian football is confronted with, is this:

When Italian teams travel abroad, they have to face real anti-
doping tests.

Italians have a sense of themselves. Not an awareness of how

they fit in with others.

It is not that Florentines are arrogant. No. It is that they spark

you to be more haughty than they—if you can!

Italy is slow-motioning to tragedy.

Italian economists would do Italy and the world a great favour

if they put down their Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson
textbooks, picked up a Bible, turned to the Ten Commandments,
and then referred to Number Seven.

34
 I want to be rich so that I can tip the waiter or waitress the
same amount as the bill.

How many people would kill their mothers for the right price?
Not saying much about mothers, no?

What’s so holy about the Holy Land?

Let’s have a The Most Stupid Journalist of the Year contest.

Why not?

What I find amusing about Christmas and New Year is that

people actually sustain the notion that they can be nice for a
week after a year of backstabbing!

Did it ever occur to you that the human race just might need a
swift kick in the ass?

Did you ever visualize the human race being generous and
compassionate?

I admit it. I need psychoanalytical advice. The problem is I

just cannot find a psychoanalyst who wants to pay me for my
sessions.

I could never be a politician. And not because I am modest.

It’s just that I would be constantly embarrassed to meet my
constituents who were earning less than me.

The bigger the problem the easier the solution.

You do not have to be ashamed of not knowing something

particular. But you better be humiliated for not knowing
anything.

Modern political philosophy must start out on this premise of

Joseph Stalin—a brutal man in a brutal time: The death of one
man is a tragedy; the death of a million men is history.

Do something generous for yourself before you might think

you could be munificent to others.

35
 You will never understand your country without seeing it
through the eyes of others who live in other nations.

I know I would make a great President of the DisUnited States

of America because I would bop down the flight of stairs, hooked
up to my Air Force One, without looking at my feet or holding on
to the handrail.

The Italian Bluff is being called.

Excessive stupidity caused World War I and World War II. You
do not have to possess a PhD from Harvard or Oxford to fathom
that. And it will be the cause of World War III.

Western civilization is not consuming to possess, it is

possessed to consume.

Updated 12 August 2005

36